Company
by CrimsonStrawberry17
Summary: Yami lives alone, with most of the former gang off living their lives. Bakura had been abandoned by his hikari and evicted from Ryou's old apartment. Yami needs company, and Bakura needs shelter. A short fic where even two former enemies can come together for the basic needs of all humans.


This isn't a fluff fic, or even really a romantic fic. This is merely about two enemies who came together because the basic needs of all humans.

Disclaimers: Does Yu-Gi-Oh contain yaoi? No, so I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Of course, I'm not the only fan girl who'd out some male x male pairings.

Warnings: Cussing

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_Company_

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Yami slid down the bare walls of his shoddy little apartment. Once, he had shared it with Yugi while his other was attending college. When Anzu and Yugi had earned enough money to go to America, they packed up and left for New York to start a new life there. Yami was happy for his aibou. It had taken him long enough to admit his feelings for the brunette and Anzu confessing her love for him back made it all the more sweeter.

Of course, the aspiring dancer had chased after him like a love struck fool for the first few months when he came back from the Ceremonial Duel with a new body. Finally tired of it all, he had been forced to pull her aside and explain to her that he wasn't interested in dating. It wasn't that he wasn't attracted to her or anything, it was just . . . he was an ancient mind in a young body.

To him, it felt like he was an old man while Anzu was a toddler barely even able to take her first steps. His mindset was on a different level than hers. It would've have felt weird to be in a romantic relationship with her.

The former Pharaoh snorted at the thought. It didn't matter anymore. Yugi and Anzu were now happily married and fulfilling their dreams thousands of miles across the ocean. They had been for the past eight months.

Jii-chan . . . Jii-chan had passed away a year ago, and the Kame Game Shop had been closed down. It had been passed down to Yugi in Jii-chan's will, but Yugi had left the place alone. Yami would have opened it in his stead, but he was clueless on how to run a modern business, so he couldn't.

Gods, he was so lonely.

Everyone he had known as a spirit was off pursing their own dreams. Yugi and Anzu were in America, Yugi working as a video game designer for some company while Anzu worked her way up to Broadway. Honda had gone off to join the military so he could help people and travel the world. Ryou had moved back to his old home in Britain and had opened up a café there. Mokuba had just graduated High School and gone off to attend some university in Tokyo while overseeing the Kaiba Corps branch in that city.

Kaiba and Jounochi were the only ones still in Domino. Kaiba, as usual, was focused on his company. Yami saw him occasionally, but the meetings were usually brief. A quick game, a small discussion of "how's Mokuba," or a few messages from distant friends.

Yami didn't have a laptop, and his landowner was a grouchy old man who couldn't be troubled to look after personal mail and threw them away unless they were important papers. So Kaiba received them in his stead and Kaiba would deliver them personally or, if he was busy, have a bodyguard deliver it for him.

Jounochi had finally broken away from his father and was working part time in a car garage while earning a degree in mechanics at a local college. His younger sister had moved in with him, working as a nurse at a nearby hospital, and they lived together in an apartment downtown. Like Kaiba, they came and went, but he rarely saw them. They were busy trying to keep themselves afloat.

As for himself, he had turned into a night owl, and worked late hours as a bartender at a nightclub downtown. Thanks to Kaiba, he had all the legal documents he needed to prove his existence. According to those documents, he was twenty-one years of age and a distant cousin to Yugi Mutou with deceased parents and no other living relative other than Yugi.

It also said he had been living somewhere in Greece for the majority of his life, although his birthplace had been in Egypt. Yami had wanted to be from Egypt, but as he had pale skin, that option had been thrown out the window. Since he was fluent in Greek from his life as Pharaoh, his homeland had become Greece.

Yami stared blankly at the wall across from him. The bare yellowing walls didn't do anything. He wondered why Yugi hadn't painted it some bright and cheery color while he was here. Oh, that's right. The old man didn't allow _any_ of his tenants to paint their apartment. Even if they were just going to repaint them white again.

Hmm, he should have put up wallpaper. The landlord hadn't said anything against wallpaper when they had moved in. But still, he would have to check first. The old man was paranoid and routinely checked all the apartments, and if he put up wallpaper and it wasn't allowed, he would be evicted quicker than he could apologize.

Not that it really mattered. He could easily find a new apartment in another apartment complex close by. That is, if Kaiba would let him. He wouldn't have this apartment at all if Kaiba had his way. The neighborhood he was living in wasn't exactly the nicest. But it was close enough to his job, and besides, Yugi had picked it out.

If he got evicted now, Kaiba would waste no time getting him settled in some high class apartment complex, or better yet, a _house_. Yami didn't want a house, or a better apartment. The one he was in now was a barely enough two people, and it was already filled to the brim with silence and emptiness. Why would he want _more_ space and _more_ silence to fill the lonely hours of his days?

Of course, Kaiba would argue if he'd quit his bartending and took up his offer to go to a university and get a degree, he would have a better job and be around more people. Yami didn't want that. He knew that if he was to take up that offer, the job he landed would be a high class one (no doubt thanks to Kaiba subtly pulling the strings in the background, along with his natural talent) and he would be surrounded by proper etiquettes.

He didn't want that. He spent his whole life in Ancient Egypt following such rules, and how he hated that game of masquerade. He was good at it, of course, but he got sick and tired of the word plays and the false smiles. Bartending, as strange a job as it seemed for a former king, brought out a peace in him.

There, the only thing he had to worry about was making sure he didn't allow anyone to get too inebriated under his watch. That, and doing his job properly and getting paid on time. His landlord was quite stingy and refused to wait for payments. You paid them when he said they were due, or you would get kicked out to the curb. He's seen it happen before.

He sighed and stood up from his slumped position against the wall to stare out the window at the lightly drizzling rain. A flash of white made him look down at the street. It couldn't be . . . he hadn't seen the thief in years, although he knew the thief was still lurking around ever since he'd been freed from being Zorc's puppet.

The last time he encountered him, he made sure to cast a spell on his former enemy, just to make sure the twenty first century didn't suffer from another international thief. He was sure that once Bakura had amassed a fortune here by breaking into every jewelry store in the city, he would have moved onto bigger and better things. Well, the thief certainly wouldn't be accomplishing any successful robberies with that curse on him.

Yami was just grateful that the only magic the tomb robber had ever possessed was Shadow Magic. With the spirits of the Items set free and their former prisons cast into the void between this world and the Afterlife, no one could use that magic now. He still had magic of course. The royal bloodlines ran thick with magic, powerful Egyptian magic.

When he was a spirit, his natural magic had been locked away by the ritual he cast to seal the Shadows. Now, since the Items were gone and the Ritual had no purpose, he remembered everything of his former life. Of course, the furious onslaught of them all, on top of learning how to use a body that was different from the proportions he was used to in Yugi's body, was _not_ a fun experience.

Bakura huffed as he stalked out into the rain. His hikari had packed up and left to wherever in the middle of the night. It was cold, one of the main reasons he hated Domino. Japan had seasons with alternating temperatures. Unfortunately, he had no ID in this world, so he couldn't get on a plane or a boat and go back to Egypt where it was warmer.

On top of that, the Pharaoh had placed some kind of spell of him so that whatever he stole returned to the place he stole it from as soon as he got away with it. Figures the bastard would still retain some magic when he hadn't. But since he couldn't steal, he had no money to buy food with or keep paying rent on Ryou's old apartment. So he had been evicted. _Permanently._

So here he was, wandering through the dark and wet streets with no home, starving, and resembling a drowned cat very accurately.

He felt a prickle on the back of his neck. Like someone was watching him. He turned and glanced up at one of the nearby windows, surprised when he saw crimson eyes meet his. The Pharaoh. He was still here? He'd thought the pompous ass had packed up and left for America with his little runt of a hikari who had chased that annoying friendship girl to New York to help her achieve her dream of being some stupid dancer on Broadway or whatever. What was he doing here?

Yami stared down at the thief who returned his gaze. That was when he realized something. It didn't seem so lonely anymore. Because of the tomb robber? But why . . . ?

Yami grinned. What did it matter why? He was lonely. Even the thief was better company than standing there looking out at the miserably pouring rain. He turned away from the window.

Bakura frowned as the Pharaoh disappeared from the window. What? Did Mr. High and Mighty decide he had enough of looking at lowly thieves stuck out in the rain and homeless that he turned away for better entertainment? He was shocked when the door to the flat opened above him on the stairwell, and the Pharaoh emerged, coming to stand at the foot of the stairs on his landing.

"What do _you_ want?" Bakura snarled. That Ra-damned Pharaoh, did he come to gloat?

Yami glanced up at the sky. "It's raining," he said simply, as though that explained everything.

"No _really?_ Is that why I'm standing out here looking like a drowned cat and freezing my ass off in this country's ridiculous weather?" The sarcasm was piled heavily onto the thief's words.

"I can see that. Which brings me to the question of _why_ you are out there in the rain instead of inside."

"What do you mean why!? It's all your Ra-damned fault! My hikari went and buggered off on me and I couldn't pay the rent to the stupid apartment because I can't steal anything and I haven't eaten anything in two days and wipe that damn smirk off your face! This is not funny!"

Yami indeed did have smirk on his face. The former Pharaoh shook his head in mirth. The world may have changed from the life he had known in Ancient Egypt, and even Kaiba had changed. But Bakura . . . he had always been this way, and for some reason, it made him happy to know that he hadn't changed.

"No, it isn't. I apologize." Bakura stood open mouthed at the apology. The _Pharaoh_ apologized to _him? _Was he on drugs? The thief knew this neighborhood was part of the slums, and therefore not a very nice place to live. Which made him wonder why the Pharaoh even had an apartment here.

"I have a casserole in the oven . . . if you want to come inside and dry off," Yami continued, lifting a hand and offering it to his former enemy.

Bakura hesitated. Slowly, he ascended the stairs towards the Pharaoh. It was better than being stuck out in the rain, especially if the Pharaoh was offering him food.

The apartment was rather bland, and small. Smaller than Ryou's had been anyways. There was nothing in the living room other than a beat up TV and black leather couch that were the only splotches of color around. Everything else was an ugly yellow color that he suspected had originally been painted white.

Completely ignoring the Pharaoh who was doing up the various locks on the door, he wandered into the kitchen. There was hardly anything in the kitchen either. The walls were the same color, the cabinets cracked, and the floor was chipped. The most expensive things he saw in here were the toaster, the coffee maker, and a microwave. The small circular table that was only big enough for three people crowded the small space.

There was a thick aroma drifting around the tiny space that reminded him of Ryou's cooking. When Yami pulled open the oven, there was a plastic tray of some type of casserole. The ex-Pharaoh placed a hot pad on the table and laid the dish on it. He went back to the counter and collected a pair of forks, a spatula, and two plates.

Bakura accepted the slice of what appeared to be some type of lasagna Yami gave him and slowly ate. It didn't taste anything like Ryou's home cooking. The thought of the Pharaoh cooking made him snort and for the Pharaoh to raise an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Just the thought of _you_ cooking anything," Bakura said, shoving a loaded fork into his mouth and growling when the hot food burned his tongue.

It was Yami's turn to snort. He waved a sauce covered fork in the direction of a trash can beside the fridge. A corner of a red cardboard box could be seen sticking out of it. "It's store-bought. The only cooking I did was sticking it in the oven."

"No wonder it tastes bland." Bakura frowned as he took another bite. Was he really sitting here with the Pharaoh and having a civil conversation? The white haired thief glanced at Yami, then to the heavy rainfall outside. Perhaps it was better to keep the royal pain in the ass talking. Just long enough for the rain to stop.

He eyed the lasagna. And maybe he could distract him long enough for him to finish the rest of it. It would have been better if he could just steal it along with an umbrella but the curse would have just put them back and the Pharaoh wouldn't let him back in.

"So . . . Yugi sends over the money for this place?" Bakura said awkwardly, trying to get the Pharaoh talking. The royal pain in the ass loved the runt, right? So he would have lots to gush on about concerning his little mini-me. He hadn't been expecting the Pharaoh to snort.

"Oh please. Just because _you_ can't get an honest job doesn't mean I can't one that pays well enough to cover my expenses."

"What honest job? You can't do jack squat without any of those damn legal papers, you baka. Neither of us have a paper trail. We were born thousands of years ago!" Bakura growled. When would the Pharaoh's stupidity cease?

Yami raised an eyebrow at him, before a flicker of understanding dawned in his eyes. "I think you're the baka. Did you, by any chance, throw away a large brown envelope with the Kaiba Corps' logo on it?"

Vaguely, Bakura _did_ remember that envelope. He'd been flicking through Ryou's mail a few weeks after the Ceremonial duel and had tossed it right into one of Ryou's boiling pots. His hikari had been in the middle of cooking dinner when he realized he didn't have any pasta and had ran to the store after setting a pot of water on the stove. Ryou knew that shelter was one of the only things that Bakura cared about, so he wouldn't let the apartment burn down.

The Pharaoh sighed at him. "What? It was from the damn priest! You expect me to care what that stick up his ass wants to send to me?!"

"Bakura . . . those were the legal documentations I asked Kaiba to make for you. Who's the baka now, wiseass?"

The thief's jaw dropped. The envelope had legal papers inside . . . and he boiled them? He was too stunned to even react to the Pharaoh's insults. He growled at himself and let his head bang down onto the table, barely missing the plate. Yami rolled his eyes at him and stood up with his own plate.

Leaving it in the sink for later, he picked up his cell from the counter and pressed one of the speed dial buttons. "Kaiba? . . . Yeah, I know what time it is. I just found out that our idiotic resident thief made garbage out of his identity."

Bakura could hear the priest's angry growling from where he sat. For someone who was hell bent on denying his Ancient Egyptian past there were quite a few Egyptian curses in the mix. He snickered. Yami tossed him a glare and walked out of the kitchen. The thief shrugged and turned back to the lasagna. Maybe he could finish it before Yami got back.

He was halfway through the rest of it when Yami came back in without his phone. He picked a glass up from the table and got himself some sweet tea from a carton and sat back down. "Kaiba's agreed to make you a new set of documents, although he swears by his dragons that if you destroy the new ones, he will hunt you down and castrate you."

Bakura was torn before laughing at the absurdity of the priest thinking he could accomplish such a thing and shock. The latter won. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S MAKING ME A NEW SET?!"

"Oh, so you _don't_ want some legal documents? I'd be perfectly happy to call Kaiba back up and inform him of your decision. I'm sure he'll be pleased to know he won't have to go through "all that bull crap" again," the Pharaoh stated smugly.

Russet brown eyes narrowed. He wanted to wipe that smirk off the Ra-damnable king's face. "I meant _why._ Why would you even bother with getting legal papers for me?"

"Just because you've been my enemy for thousands of years doesn't mean I'd let you sink. This century sucks when you don't have an identity. So shut up and be grateful."

Bakura sneered at him, before shoving his plate aside and grabbed the tray. What was the point of using the damn thing when there was a perfectly good container already filled with food? The Pharaoh didn't comment on it, so either he didn't care that he was taking the rest, or he was too busy roaming around that empty head of his.

Yami grinned as he watched Bakura take the last of the lasagna. The thief wouldn't have been his first choice for company, but that was okay. Because he wasn't lonely anymore. And who better to keep him company than the man who had always been there in the end?

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Hope you enjoyed, and please review.


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